Polypeptide factor from a thermophilic eubacterial species and use thereof in the production of functional, heterologous proteins in an expression host

ABSTRACT

A polypeptide factor derived from the thermophilic eubacterial species  Thermus thermophilus  has universal protein expression-assisting activity. The polypeptide factor has been named the CzrB protein active in full length or truncated form has the potential to act as a universal protein expression-assisting molecule which can increase the yields of all heterologous proteins produced in  E. coli  by a mechanism that is independent of the protein being expressed.

The present application is a continuation application of co-pending application Ser. No. 10/389,771, file on Mar. 18, 2003, priority of which is claimed under 35 U.S.C. §120 and the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the production of heterologous proteins in a host organism and to protein expression-assisting molecules which result in said heterologous proteins having functional activity, due to a correct folding thereof.

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART

The production of heterologous proteins in bacterial hosts such as the bacterium Escherichia coli (hereinafter referred to collectively as E. coli and exemplified by E. coli except where otherwise expressly stated) is a powerful tool in the generation of many important biotechnological and medical products. This technique involves inserting the DNA encoding the product in question into an E. coli cell and using the cell to convert the genetic information into a functional protein.

Research over the past 20 years has demonstrated the ability of E. coli to serve as the expression host for a wide variety of proteins from numerous sources, ranging from other Gram-negative bacteria to mammalian proteins.

Improvements to the basic technology include the development of secretion mechanisms, whereby polypeptides are exported to the periplasmic space or the extracellular medium, as required for their folding and/or activity. The periplasmic space is of particular interest to the biotechnologist in terms of heterologous protein production in E. coli, due to its oxidising environment. This allows the formation of disulfide bonds, which are essential for correct folding and activity of many mammalian proteins of medicinal and/or biotechnological interest, such as antibody molecules.

Other improvements to fundamental expression systems in E. coli include greater control of expression of heterologous proteins, and novel peptide tags encoded on expressed molecules to facilitate their detection and purification.

Due to its extensive genetic and biochemical characterisation, E. coli is frequently the organism of choice for heterologous protein production experiments. E. coli also exhibits simple fermentation pathways and has a short doubling time, which is also advantageous. Furthermore, the nutritional (and sterility) requirements of E. coli are uncomplicated, relative to higher organisms.

A major disadvantage of E. coli as an expression host, however, is the fact that the yields attainable with this organism are relatively low, while it frequently also exhibits difficulties in synthesising proteins derived from eucaryotic sources. These difficulties can take the shape of an inability to carry out particular post-translational modifications of the translated polypeptide or, more fundamentally, an inability of the E. coli cellular machinery to fold the peptide in the first place. In instances such as the latter, the available solutions have been to translate the polypeptide in E. coli, followed by refolding in vitro—a time-consuming and highly inefficient process—or to switch expression host to a higher organism which can carry out the expression efficiently, but with the concomitant loss of advantages of E. coli, as outlined above.

While E. coli carries out the process of gene expression and protein production very efficiently with its own, natural proteins, it is considerably less productive when expressing proteins from other species. This is most likely due to an inability to correctly fold the translated polypeptide, or to successfully transport it to the appropriate subcellular compartment for assembly or folding. Such a deficiency may result from the E. Coli “synthetic machinery” being unable to recognise or act upon heterologous proteins due to differences in such proteins relative to E. coli's native proteins. Alternatively, it may reflect an inability on the part of the host cells to express genes at the high levels demanded in such biotechnological experiments due to saturation of its normal gene expression and/or protein synthetic machinery. In such a scenario, the expressed protein typically forms large, insoluble aggregates consisting of multiple copies of the protein, which is non-functional and may be destroyed by the normal cellular machinery.

Furthermore, expression of heterologous genes in E. coli appears to frequently subject the cells to severe stress, leading to damage to the outer membrane of the host E. coli cell and leaking of the contents of the cell into the culture medium. This is typically followed by cell death via lysis of the E. coli cells.

This response of E. coli to expression of foreign genes has important implications for its potential in the production of a wide variety of heterologous proteins. With some foreign genes, E. coli has been found to be incapable of producing any functional protein; in cases in which E. coli folds the translated protein inefficiently or is overly stressed as a result of its expression, yields of the heterologous protein are dramatically reduced.

Researchers have attempted to overcome these problems with heterologous protein production in three main ways: i) genetic modification of the protein being expressed to improve its production in E. coli; ii) manipulation of the growth environment in order to reduce the stress on the expressing bacteria; and iii) co-expression in E. coli of natural folding-assisting molecules, termed chaperones, to improve production of the heterologous protein.

Genetic modification has proved successful with a number of proteins (Knappik, A. and Plückthun, A. (1995) Prot. Eng. 8:81-89; Wall, J. G. and Plückthun, A. (1999) Prot. Eng. 12:605-611) but remains severely limited by the fact that solutions to expression problems that result from mutagenic modification are likely to be highly specific for the particular protein being expressed—whereas solutions that could be applied to all heterologous proteins expressed in E. coli would eliminate the need for labour-intensive, highly time consuming mutagenic studies to be repeated for each protein being produced.

Manipulation of the growth environment, for example, by modifying nutrients and temperature, has been shown to have a mildly positive effect in a number of cases, but would ultimately be expected to improve expression of reasonably efficiently expressed proteins rather than being able to overcome serious difficulties of expression or folding of specific proteins. The approach that appears to offer most hope in terms of a generally applicable solution is that of co-expressing folding assisting molecules that will enable the host E. coli cells to correctly express any or all heterologous proteins, without the need for further optimisation. To date, no single molecule has been identified, however, that improves the production of all heterologous proteins studied and, thus, again the difficulty arises of having to individually optimise expression for each heterologous protein.

Thus, a generally applicable solution to expressing traditionally “difficult” proteins in E. coli would make a highly significant contribution to the field of heterologous protein production.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides a polypeptide factor derived from a thermophilic eubacterial species, said polypeptide factor having universal protein expression-assisting activity.

Preferably, the thermophilic eubacterial species is Thermus thermophilus.

Further, preferably, the polypeptide factor has an amino acid sequence defined as amino acid position 1 to amino acid position 291 in FIG. 2 (SEQ ID NO: 1). This polypeptide factor has been named the CzrB protein as hereinafter described. Said polypeptide factor described and characterised herein has the potential to overcome, by a mechanism that is independent of the protein being expressed, many of the difficulties associated with expressing proteins, more particularly eucaryotic proteins in E. coli.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the CzrB polypeptide factor is the full length protein of 291 amino acids having SEQ ID NO: 1 hereinbefore specified.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, the CzrB polypeptide factor is a truncated form of the CzrB protein, namely a polypeptide factor of 92 amino acids having SEQ ID NO: 2.

The CzrB protein from T. thermophilus either in its full length or truncated forms described herein has the potential to act as a universal protein expression-assisting molecule which can increase the yields of all heterologous proteins produced in E. coli as hereinafter described.

It is expected that the truncated version of CzrB, containing a putative 92 amino acids as opposed to the 291 of the mature CzrB protein will lead to significantly higher improvements in protein yields upon over-expression from a better regulated promoter. The truncated protein is less than one-third the size of the mature protein and thus is likely to accumulate to much higher levels and at lower metabolic expense to the expressing cell. Furthermore, the truncated protein is also unlikely to be inserted into the cell membrane in the host bacterial cell and, thus, less likely to interfere with normal cell functioning if expressed at greatly elevated levels in the cell under the control of a strong promoter.

The invention also provides an isolated DNA sequence encoding each of the polypeptide factors hereinbefore defined.

These isolated DNA sequences include a DNA sequence having SEQ ID NO: 3 encoding the polypeptide factor having SEQ ID NO: 1 and a DNA sequence SEQ ID NO: 4 encoding the polypeptide factor having SEQ ID NO: 2.

The invention also provides an isolated DNA sequence comprising the structural gene encoding the polypeptide factor having SEQ ID NO: 1 and a flanking sequence containing a control element for the expression of said polypeptide factor. The flanking sequence can be either a downstream sequence or an upstream sequence or both. One such sequence is SEQ ID NO: 5.

The invention also provides a method for increasing production of heterologous proteins in a bacterial host cell, which comprises contacting said bacterial host cell with an effective amount of the polypeptide factor as hereinbefore defined during the expression of said heterologous protein.

Preferably, the bacterial host cell is an E. coli host cell.

The invention also provides a vector comprising an isolated DNA sequence as hereinbefore defined.

The invention further provides a host cell containing an isolated DNA sequence as hereinbefore defined.

According to a further embodiment of the invention there is provided a method for increasing production of heterologous protein in a bacterial host cell, which method comprises cultivating said host cell under conditions permitting expression of a DNA sequence as hereinbefore defined.

Preferably, the heterologous protein is a eucaryotic protein.

According to a further embodiment of the invention there is provided a method for the production of heterologous functional protein in an E. coli host cell, said method comprising co-cultivating DNA for said heterologous functional protein with a DNA sequence as hereinbefore defined.

The invention also provides a method for the production of heterologous function protein in an E. coli host cell, which method comprises co-expression of a polypeptide factor as hereinbefore defined.

According to a further embodiment of the invention there is provided a method of reducing stress in an expressing bacterial cell, which method comprises co-expressing a heterologous protein and a polypeptide factor as hereinbefore defined.

According to a still further embodiment of the invention there is provided a method of optimising expression of a heterologous protein in an expressing bacterial cell, which method comprises co-expressing the heterologous protein and a polypeptide factor as hereinbefore defined.

The invention also provides an antibody to a polypeptide factor as herebefore defined.

The invention also provides a method of purifying a protein with universal protein expression-assisting activity, said method comprising contacting a cell extract with an antibody as hereinbefore defined.

The invention also provides a polypeptide factor as hereinbefore defined which has homology with metal ion efflux proteins from other eucaryotic species.

The invention also provides a polypeptide factor as hereinbefore defined which confers on E. coli increased resistance to heavy metal ions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES

FIG. 1 is an agarose gel depicting the results of screening a bacteriophage library as described in Example 1;

FIG. 2A and 2B is an alignment of the T. thermophilus CzrB amino acid sequence with homologues from a number of species as described in Example 2;

FIG. 3 is a graph of intracellular zinc concentration (mg/g dry weight cells) for a number of E. coli clones as described in Example 3;

FIG. 4 is a graph of intracellular zinc concentration (mg/g dry weight cells) versus time (h)) following zinc efflux from E. coli cells containing T. thermophilus czrB as described in Example 3.

FIG. 5 is a graph of O.D. 600 versus time after induction (hours) depicting growth of E. coli clones containing T. thermophilus czrB as described in Example 4;

FIG. 6 depicts phage titers (cfu) of clones containing pHB 102 phagemid vector or pHB102-czrB determined 10 and 22 h. after induction as described in Example 5; and

FIG. 7 depicts O.D. 405 resulting from anti-FITC ELISAs carried out on the clones of FIG. 6 determined 10 and 22 hr. after induction as described in Example 5.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Protein folding is highly sensitive to increases in temperature and thus a thermophilic bacterial species namely, the thermophilic eubacterium T. thermophilus was screened for possible novel or additional folding-assisting factors that might enable it to carry out folding effectively at high temperatures. Many proteins from T. thermophilus have also been functionally produced in E. coli, indicating recognition of its control elements by the mesophile. Furthermore, even though a thermophile, many of the enzymes of T. thermophilus function at E. coli's growth temperature, allowing for phenotypic screening of gene libraries as hereinafter described.

The screening was based on identifying T. thermophilus molecules that might improve the ability of host E. coli cells to express a known, poorly folding antibody molecule. To this end phage display technology was carried out, in which antibodies were displayed on the surface of bacteriophage particles. A phage display system is an in vitro approach that mimics the human immune system by generating a large, diverse collection of antibody molecules, expressed on the surface of bacteriophage (“phage”) particles, followed by selection of phage-antibody partners with desired binding specificities from the library. The displayed antibodies were first expressed in the host E. coli cells, leading to a requirement for correct folding for display. Bacteriophage particles were then subjected to affinity selection on an immobilised ligand, resulting in selection of antibody molecules that displayed an antibody of a particular binding specificity, depending on the identity of the immobilised ligand. While phage display technology is normally used to select antibodies from libraries of molecules of different binding specificities (McCafferty, J. et al. (1990) Nature 348:552-554), as hereinafter exemplified in the same antibody was cloned onto all phage particles in accordance with the present invention. A genomic DNA library, generated from T. thermophilus, was also cloned into the expressing E. coli cells. Thus, the difference between E. coli clones in the resultant library was merely the identity of the T. thermophilus DNA contained within the cells, such that affinity selection of one bacteriophage particle over another would be determined by the Thermus gene and, in turn, its effect on the expression of the displayed antibody in the host E. coli cells.

Replication in E. coli gives rise to random mutations in the isolated antibodies with the result that affinity maturation (selection of higher affinity molecules) occured upon repeated cycles of antigen binding and re-infection. Critically, the production of phage particles in the host E. coli cells in this manner necessitates correct folding of not only the native phage proteins but also the displayed recombinant protein if it is to be effectively displayed and, thus, affinity selected.

Thus, a modified phage display system, in which all phage particles expressed the same, poorly-folding antibody molecule on their surface was utilised in accordance with the present invention. A chromosomal DNA library from T. thermophilus was also cloned into the phage vector containing the antibody fragment. As all phage particles contained the same antibody fragment—and should therefore display antibodies with identical affinities for the immobilised ligand—selection should be dependent on the efficiency of folding (and, thus, efficiency of display) of the molecule rather than the strength of the binding event. Thus, any T. thermophilus gene encoding a protein that facilitated expression of the recombinant antibody fragment would lead to improved production and display of the cloned antibody fragment and lead in turn to isolation of that clone from the phage antibody library (Spada, S. et al (2002) Extremophiles 6:301-8).

Screening of the T. thermophilus library led to the isolation of the czrB gene, both in a full-length and a truncated form. Sequence analysis indicated homology with metal ion efflux proteins from a number of species. The gene was re-cloned to eliminate flanking partial gene sequences in the isolated clones and the resultant clones were analysed in a number of ways. E. coli clones containing the czrB gene were found to exhibit increased resistance to cadmium and zinc, with zinc, cadmium and cobalt all found to induce the resistance to zinc ions. Measurement of intracellular zinc concentrations over time indicated that the CzrB protein was active in efflux of zinc from the E. coli cells as a mechanism of mediating this resistance. Furthermore, clones containing the czrB gene were shown to grow more rapidly and exhibited delayed cell lysis than clones lacking the gene, when this growth was associated with antibody and bacteriophage production. This led in turn to higher antibody yields in the former cells. Further analysis of this effect indicated that the CzrB protein did not appear to interact at the molecular level with either the antibody or the bacteriophage particles and could thus be considered a true, general “stress reliever” of the E. coli cells. For this reason it is envisaged that the polypeptide factors according to the invention will have widespread application in increasing production levels of heterologous proteins produced in E. coli in general, as stated above.

The T. thermophilus gene and gene product described herein have the potential to be developed into a universal cure for difficulties associated with the expression of eucaryotic proteins in E. coli. While other workers have identified molecules and techniques that assist the production of individual proteins in E. coli expression hosts, a critical aspect of the present invention is the observation that the effects on the expressing host—of improving growth, delaying cell lysis and, thus, increasing yields of heterologous protein produced—are independent of the identity of the protein being produced. Thus, coexpression of a DNA sequence according to the invention in currently available periplasmic expression vector systems is expected to confer such growth improvements on E. coli cells expressing any heterologous protein, irrespective of its source, with concomitant improvements in protein yields.

While the czrB gene was expressed under the control of its own, natural promoter as described in the following Examples, it will be clear to those skilled in the art that further improvements in E. coli cell growth and protein yields can be expected if czrB is expressed from a stronger, more standard promoter used in cloning and expression experiments, such as for example Plac. This would be expected to yield significantly higher CzrB levels in the expressing cell, which would be likely to exhibit increased benefits in terms of heterologous protein expression and yields.

The invention will be further illustrated by the following Example

EXAMPLE 1 Construction and Screening of the T. thermophilus Genomic Library

The T. thermophilus genomic library was constructed as follows (Spada S. et al (2001) DNA Seq 11:507-514.): a 5 ml culture of T. thermophilus KT8 was harvested at an OD₆₀₀ of 1.8 and the cell pellet was resuspended in 0.5 ml STE buffer (10 mM Tris, 100 mM NaCl, 1 mM EDTA, pH 8.0). RNase A was added to a final concentration of 100 μg/ml, SDS to 8.5 mg/ml and proteinase K to 100 μg/ml. Incubation for 2 h at 37° C. was followed by two phenol extractions, three phenol/chloroform/isoamyl alcohol extractions, ethanol precipitation and resuspension in 100 μl TE buffer. The T. thermophilus chromosomal DNA was partially digested using Sau3AI restriction enzyme in order to maximise the yield of DNA fragments in the 1-5 kb range. Fragments in this size range were purified using a QIAEXII agarose gel DNA extraction kit (Qiagen) and cloned into a Bg/II-digested pHB102 phagemid vector containing the poorly-folding anti-fluorescein-isothiocyanate (FITC) scFv antibody fragment (Bothmann, H. and Plückthun, A. (1998) Nat Biotechnol 16:376-380.). The library was transformed into E. coli XL1-Blue cells and the resultant library was estimated by NotI digestion to contain in the region of 1.1×10⁴ clones. As this was calculated to be in excess of the size required to contain all T. thermophilus genes, based on the size of the T. thermophilus genome, screening of the library was initiated.

Phage production was induced overnight in E. coli cells harbouring the Thermus library and five rounds of fluorescein-isothiocyanate (FITC), the antigen recognised by the displayed antibody fragment, were carried out as follows: E. coli cells harbouring the Thermus library were inoculated to an OD₆₀₀≦0.05 in 10 ml 2×YT medium containing tetracycline (15 μg/ml), additional salts (8.6 mM NaCl; 2.5 mM KCl; 10 mM MgCl₂) and 0.4% glucose. After 1 h at 37° C., 30 μg/ml chloramphenicol was added, followed by 10¹⁰ pfu of helper phage (VCSM13 helper phage; Stratagene) at an OD₆₀₀ of 0.5. Incubation at 50° C. for 5 min was followed by the addition of 50 ml 2×YT containing tetracycline, chloramphenicol, additional salts and 0.5 mM isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG). The culture was shaken at 40° C. for 2 h and, after the addition of 30 μg/ml kanamycin, grown for a further 12-14 h at 40° C. Phage particles were precipitated from culture supernatants by two PEG precipitation steps and resuspended in 1 ml PBS (8 g NaCl, 0.24 g KH₂PO₄, 1.44 g Na₂HPO₄, 0.2 g KCl in 1 L, pH 7.4). Immunotubes (Nunc) were coated overnight at 4° C. with 1 μg/ml fluorescein-isothiocyanate coupled to bovine serum albumin (FITC-BSA) (Bothmann, H. and Plückthun, A (1998) supra) in PBS. Blocking was with 5% skimmed milk in PBST (PBS containing 0.05% Tween-20) for 2 h at 37° C., followed by dilution of 800 μl of the phage solution in 3.3 ml of 2% skimmed milk in PBST and incubation in the tubes for 2 h at 25° C. Twenty washes with PBST and two with PBS were followed by elution of bound particles for 10 min at room temperature using 1 ml 0.1 M glycine/HCl (pH 2.2). The eluate was neutralised immediately with 60 μl of 2 M Tris and used for reinfection of E. coli; this procedure was repeated for five rounds of phage selection on immobilised FITC and reinfection (“panning”). After each panning round DNA from the phage pool was digested with NotI to check for enrichment of Thermus DNA inserts. After the third round, a DNA fragment of approximately 1.2 kb began to appear in the digested library pool, as well as a less intense band of 1.8 kb which became considerably enriched by the fifth panning round as shown in FIG. 1.

In FIG. 1 the molecular weight marker (DNA Molecular Weight Marker XIV from Roche Applied Science) is in lane 1 and control, undigested phagemid DNA in lane 2. The result of restriction analysis of phage pools from panning rounds 3, 4 and 5 are shown above in lanes 3-5, respectively.

These results were a clear indication that selection of specific clones was occurring in the library. Therefore, after the fifth panning round, 30 individual clones were isolated and analysed by NotI digestion in order to determine the size of their cloned T. thermophilus gene. One clone had an insert of approximately 1.8 kb, 2 clones had inserts of 1.2 kb (which corresponded to the sizes observed in the library pool analysis), 25 clones had inserts of between 50 and 280 bp and the remaining 2 clones no insert. As approximately 90% of clones had been determined to contain inserts of 1-5 kb in analysis of the original library, the smaller inserts observed in 27 of 30 clones after panning was interpreted as evidence for a strong selective pressure against E. coli cells retaining large sections of DNA which provided no benefit to the cell. It was speculated, therefore, that the T. thermophilus genes retained (and selected) by E. coli clones under such conditions should confer a strong advantage upon the cells and the basis of that selective advantage was then determined in the 3 clones identified with the larger T. thermophilus DNA inserts.

EXAMPLE 2 Identification and Analysis of T. thermophilus czrB

Clones containing the larger fragments described in Example 1 were sequenced to identify the isolated Thermus genes. Sequencing of the isolated 1.8 kb clone revealed an insert of 1743 bp, containing a single complete open reading frame (ORF) of 876 bp. BLASTx analysis of the complete ORF using the EMBL database revealed homology to cation efflux system proteins, mostly termed Czr (for cadmium-zinc resistance) or CzcD (for cadmium-zinc-cobalt resistance), from a variety of organisms. Based on experimental analysis, the T. thermophilus gene was named czrB, after the Staphylococcus aureus gene (Kuroda, M. et al (1999) Microbiol Immunol 43:115-125). Multiple sequence alignments were generated with homologous proteins using CLUSTALw as depicted in FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 shows the alignment of the T. thermophilus CzrB amino acid sequence identified herein with homologues from Ralstonia eutropha (CzcD, accession number P13512), S. aureus (CzrB, Q9ZNF5), rat (Rattus norvegicus) (Znt1, Q62720) and Saccaromyces cerevisiae (Zrc1, P20107). Emboldening indicates residues identical to the T. thermophilus sequence and italics residues homologous to the Thermus sequence. The putative translation start site for the partial czrB gene isolated from the library (Met₂₀₀) is boxed.

Of the known homologues, only those from rat, S. cerevisiae, R. eutropha-like CH34 (previously Alcaligenes eutrophus CH34) and S. aureus have been phenotypically characterised, with the main structural difference between the proteins being the extended loops between putative transmembrane segments in eucaryotic species. PSORT II (Nakai, K. and Kanehisa, M. (1992) Genomics 14:897-911) was employed for subcellular localisation predictional analysis, which envisaged the Thermus protein as a cytoplasmic membrane protein of molecular mass 31233 Da, while a modified hidden Markov model was utilised for prediction of transmembrane helices (Krogh, A. et al (2001) J Mol Biol 305:567-580.) and indicated that it contained six putative membrane-spanning α-helices, of which the 4 N-terminal spanners were highly hydrophobic, features conserved in other CzcD-like proteins. The Thermus structural gene also had a % GC content and amino acid composition typical of genes from thermophilic species.

As the sequence of the T. thermophilus gene had not previously been reported, it was re-amplified from the T. thermophilus genomic DNA, cloned into pUC19 and re-sequenced in order to confirm the original sequence. As well as confirming the original sequence, this re-cloning served to eliminate partial structural genes on either side of the czrB gene in the original clone, in order to eliminate possible interfering materials in subsequent characterisation of the effects of CzrB. 100 bp was retained upstream and 78 bp downstream of the czrB gene in this re-cloning, however, as these regions were expected to contain any control elements from the T. thermophilus chromosome, thus allowing study of not only the CzrB protein, but also the control of its expression in vivo.

Sequencing of the two 1.2 kb clones isolated during library screening revealed identical partial copies of czrB, encoding the 108 C-terminal amino acids of the 291 residue protein. It was determined that the first consensus ATG in this truncated czrB gene occurred at Met₂₀₀ and was closely preceded by a putative ribosome binding site; therefore, it was concluded that translation most likely begins in these truncated genes at residue 200 and yields a 92 amino acid peptide that corresponds to the C-terminal, cytoplasmic tail of the mature CzrB molecule shown in FIG. 2. Subcellular localisation analysis of this putative polypeptide (Nakai, K. and Kanehisa, M. (1992) supra) predicted it to form a soluble, cytoplasmic molecule in the cell.

EXAMPLE 3 Heavy Metal Analysis

Given that the czrB gene and its truncated form that were isolated from the phage display screening described in Example 2 showed homology to cation efflux proteins, we investigated whether the isolated clones exhibited activities similar to those reported for homologous proteins in other species. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for metal cations were therefore measured for cells with and without the cloned czrB gene in order to investigate whether the T. thermophilus protein protected host E. coli cells grown in high concentrations of heavy metals. E. coli clones were grown in LB medium containing 100 μg/ml ampicillin and 25 μg/ml streptomycin for 90 min at 37° C. This was carried out with and without addition of 165 μM ZnCl₂, 220 μM CoCl₂ or 80 μM CdCl₂ (chosen as approximately 10% of MICs). Following dilution in LB, 10³-10⁴ cells were spread on LB agar (plus ampicillin and streptomycin) containing ZnCl₂ (at concentrations ranging from 1.4 mM to 2.9 mM at 0.1 mM intervals), CoCl₂ (1.7 mM to 2.2 mM with 0.1 mM steps) or CdCl₂ (from 0.6 mM to 1.2 mM with 0.1 mM steps). Growth of E. coli was measured after 24 h and 40 h, with MICs of the three metals defined as the lowest concentrations not allowing detectable E. coli growth after 40 h at 37° C. MIC determinations were carried out three times with each clone and metal ion. E. coli cells containing the T. thermophilus czrB gene exhibited a significantly higher MIC for Zn²⁺ than cells containing pUC alone, while the cadmium MIC increased only slightly and cobalt resistance was unaffected by the presence of czrB as shown in Table 1. TABLE 1 Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of ZnCl₂, CoCl₂ and CdCl₂ determined for E. coli JM83, JM83 containing pUC and JM83 containing pUC with cloned czrB. MIC (mM) Clone pre-induction Zinc Cobalt Cadmium JM83 none 2.0 2.1 0.9 +pUC none 1.6 2.1 0.9 +pUC zinc 1.6 2.1 0.9 +pUC cobalt 1.6 2.1 0.9 +pUC cadmium 1.6 2.1 0.7 +pUC-czrB none 1.9 2.1 1.0 +pUC-czrB zinc 2.5 2.1 1.0 +pUC-czrB cobalt 2.1 2.1 1.1 +pUC-czrB cadmium 2.2 2.1 0.9

Induction of metal resistance in E. coli cells carrying czrB was found to have a significant effect on metal tolerance of cells over the subsequent growth period, but with no difference observed between relative MICs measured after 24 or 40 h. Resistance to zinc mediated by the Thermus czrB could be induced by pre-incubation of E. coli cells with zinc, cadmium or cobalt as shown in Table 1. Thus, curiously, the Thermus protein appears to recognise cobalt and yet not to transport the cation. The ability to induce zinc tolerance was considerable, with the zinc MIC increasing from 1.6 mM (no czrB) to 1.9 mM (with czrB) to 2.5 mM (with czrB pre-induced by zinc) in the E. coli cells. The ability to induce cadmium resistance was poor, however, with only slight, non-statistically significant, increases in MIC inducible with cadmium or cobalt, and no detectable effect with zinc. No increase in zinc MICs was seen upon pre-incubation of wild-type E. coli cells with zinc.

Metal resistances of the type observed with the czrB clones can be the result of metal sequestering or modification of metal transport processes. However, based on reports of CzrB homologues in other organisms it was postulated that the protein CzrB provided resistance to heavy metal ions by an efflux mechanism rather than by metal sequestering. Therefore, the ability of the T. thermophilus CzrB protein to pump zinc ions out of the E. coli cells in which it was expressed was investigated. Intracellular zinc concentrations were measured as follows: E. coli clones were grown at 37° C. in LB medium (100 μg/ml ampicillin, 25 μg/ml streptomycin) in the presence or absence of 165 μM ZnCl₂ until an OD₆₀₀ of 1.0 was reached. After addition of 1, 2 or 5 mM ZnCl₂, growth was continued for 30 min, 1 h or 2 h, with control cultures grown in the absence of ZnCl₂. Samples (20 ml) of each culture were centrifuged at 8000 g for 20 min at 4° C. and cell pellets were washed in 4 ml LB medium and in 4 ml 0.1 N HNO₃. Following 15 min at 121° C., pellets were dissolved in 500 μl of H₂SO₄ and approximately 150 μl of HNO₃ was added dropwise until the solution went clear. Six ml of water was added, followed by centrifugation at 8000 g for 25 min. The zinc concentration was measured in the supernatant using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Varian SpectrAA-400 Plus), with standard solutions prepared immediately before use from commercial standards (Fisher Scientific). A calibration curve relating OD₆₀₀ to cell dry weight was used to calculate intracellular zinc concentrations at time of harvesting. The results are shown in FIG. 3 which depicts a quantification of intracellular zinc levels in E. coli clones: JM83 (“JM83”), JM83 containing pUC (“pUC”), and JM83 containing pUC-czrB without (“czrB”) and with (“czrB (Zn)”) a zinc pre-induction step. Results of 1 h incubations in 0, 1, 2 and 5 mM extracellular zinc concentrations are shown.

As indicated in FIG. 3, the presence of czrB was found to significantly reduce the levels of zinc in E. coli cells, whereas pUC alone led to elevated intracellular zinc levels. These results indicated that increased metal resistance was mediated by modification of either influx or efflux activity. This effect was particularly evident at high extracellular zinc concentrations that led to elevated initial intracellular concentrations in E. coli cells. Pre-exposure of cells to zinc further reduced cellular levels in czrB clones in high zinc environments, indicating an inducible resistance mechanism, as observed in MIC experiments.

A time course experiment was carried out to distinguish between reduced influx and increased efflux as the cause of the reduced cellular accumulation of zinc. The results are shown in FIG. 4 which depicts the results of an analysis of zinc efflux from E. coli cells containing T. thermophilus czrB. Clones shown were grown in 0 mM (triangles), 1 mM (circles), 2 mM (squares) or 5 mM (diamonds) ZnCl₂. Empty symbols show the same clones subjected to pre-exposure to 165 μM ZnCl₂ prior to analysis. Intracellular zinc concentrations decreased significantly over the analysis period, with the rate of ion removal increased upon pre-exposure of cells to zinc, indicating that the protective mechanism of czrB involves an inducible process of efflux of metals from the cell.

EXAMPLE 4 Investigation of Effects on Heterologous Protein Production

The strong selection of clones that had eliminated all or part of their Thermus insert during phage panning (27 of 30 clones analysed were found to have inserts of <300 bp) indicated that czrB exerted a strong positive effect on its host cells merely to be retained throughout library screening. In addition, the czrB gene was contained in all 3 large-insert clones selected from the library, in one case as a full-length molecule and in the other two as identical partial sequences. The observed effects of czrB on metal resistance of host E. coli cells were of no apparent advantage (or relevance) during the phage display procedure. An investigation of why czrB, in both its full-length and partial forms, should be so strongly selected in the library screening experiments was then investigated. Thus, E. coli clones were analysed under recombinant antibody and phage production conditions in order to investigate the basis of the effect of CzrB. These experiments were designed to determine if (i) czrB led to increased phage titres in host E. coli cells; (ii) czrB led to improved folding of the recombinant anti-FITC antibody, co-expressed in the host E. coli cell; and (iii) czrB had any effect on the growth of E. coli cells expressing the anti-FITC antibody.

E. coli cells infected with phage were grown as described in Example 1. The OD₆₀₀ was read at hourly intervals for the first 8-10 h after induction. The results are shown in FIG. 5 which depicts growth of E. coli clones containing T. thermophilus czrB. Growth characteristics of E. coli clones containing pHB102 phagemid vector alone (circles) or with czrB (triangles), a partial czrB gene (squares) or random T. thermophilus DNA (diamonds) as an insert are shown. The experiment was carried out during bacteriophage and recombinant antibody production in the E. coli cells. This experiment revealed that czrB-containing clones grew considerably better than cells containing just the phagemid vector with delayed cell lysis and greater than 2-fold higher cell densities attained. These cell density differences were maintained after 22 h of induction (data not shown) and this improved growth of czrB-containing clones is believed to account for selection of the gene from the library. Isolated clones containing the partial czrB insert exhibited growth characteristics intermediate between the full-length czrB clone and cells containing the phagemid vector, while a randomly selected control clone with a 2 kb insert displayed significantly poorer growth than clones containing the vector alone. This result also provided an insight into how the original library became biased in favour of clones containing small sized or no Thermus inserts in the absence of a phenotypic benefit associated with the cloned DNA.

EXAMPLE 5 Determination of Phage Titers and the Amount of Antibody Displayed in Funcational Form on the Phage Surface

Culture samples from the growth experiment described in Example 4 were also collected to determine both phage titers and the amount of antibody displayed in functional form on the phage surface. Individual clones were analysed by restriction digestion after 22 h of induction to confirm that they contained both the Thermus insert and the recombinant antibody gene. Clones were analysed in at least three independent experiments and while absolute OD values, phage titers and ELISA readings varied between experiments, the respective patterns of growth and production exhibited by individual clones remained highly consistent throughout. ELISA analysis was used to determine the effects of co-expressing the czrB gene on the functionality of the phage-displayed antibody protein. Immunoplate wells (Nunc) were coated with 100 μl of FITC-BSA and blocked with 5% skimmed milk in PBST. After washing, 100 μl of phage solutions containing 0.5% skimmed milk were added and incubated for 2 h at 25° C. Phage particles were detected using a peroxidase-conjugated anti-M13 antibody (1:3000 in PBST; Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Inc.) and development was carried out using a BM Blue POD soluble substrate (Roche Diagnostics). After stopping the reaction using 25 μl of 1 N H₂SO₄, the absorbance was read at 405 nm. E. coli cultures containing czrB were found to exhibit two-fold higher phage titres and to produce more than twice the amount of functional antibody as cultures containing the vector alone. The results are depicted in FIGS. 6 and 7.

FIG. 6 depicts phage titers of clones expressing czrB. The phage titers of clones containing pHB102 phagemid vector or pHB102-czrB expressed as colony forming units (cfu) were determined 10 and 22 h after induction.

FIG. 7 depicts ELISA analysis of clones expressing czrB. Anti-FITC ELISAs were carried out on the same clones as in the case of FIG. 6 so as to investigate the functionality of bacteriophage-displayed FITC-binding antibody fragments. Results are shown for samples taken 10 and 22 h after induction.

Cells containing the partial czrB gene showed signals intermediate between the full-length gene and the control culture in both phage titre and ELISA studies (data not shown). This led to the conclusion that, while the transmembrane domains of the T. thermophilus protein are required for its full effect to be achieved, the putative cytoplasmic tail of CzrB alone makes a significant contribution to the beneficial effects of the protein observed in E. coli. While the truncated CzrB construct according to the invention was not tested in efflux experiments, other workers have found that the C-terminal 62 and 72 amino acids from rat ZnT-1 and R. eutropha CzcD, respectively, are inessential for the protein's role in cation efflux, suggesting that the roles of T. thermophilus CzrB in metal efflux and in facilitating E. coli growth under recombinant protein production conditions occur via distinct mechanisms. Finally, the increased yields observed with both the full length and truncated versions of czrB were proportional to, and therefore apparently directly attributable to, the increased cell densities observed in E. coli cultures containing czrB, indicating that the czrB gene product appeared to have no direct effect on cellular antibody expression or bacteriophage production. Rather, its effect appeared to reside in relieving the physiological stresses typically associated with recombinant protein production in E. coli, thus allowing improved growth, higher culture densities and increased yields of recombinant protein in the cultures.

To investigate this theory further, czrB was expressed from a lac promoter in a standard pUC-based expression vector, in the absence of bacteriophage particles and the recombinant antibody used in experiments thus far. The same pattern of E. coli cell growth, relative to cells containing the vector alone, was observed upon P_(lac) induction (data not shown), confirming that the effect of CzrB appears to be to improve E. coli physiology, at least in the presence of pUC-based vectors, rather than to interact directly with the antibody or bacteriophage molecules in the cell. This raises the possibility that CzrB, in its full length form or as a truncated version, might function as an “universal chaperone”, which would facilitate the expression of any recombinant or heterologous proteins produced in an E. coli host. 

1. E. coli bacteria comprising a polypeptide factor from a thermophilic eubacterial species, wherein said polypeptide factor is a metal ion efflux protein, which assists in the expression of heterologous proteins and which confers on E. coli increased resistance to heavy metal ions compared to wild-type E-coli that do not contain the polypeptide factor.
 2. The E. coli bacteria of claim 1, wherein the thermophilic eubacterial species is Thermus thermophilus.
 3. The E. coli bacteria of claim 1, wherein the polypeptide factor has an amino acid sequence as defined by amino acid position No. 1 to amino acid position No. 291 of SEQ ID NO:1.
 4. The E. coli bacteria of claim 1, wherein the polypeptide factor has an amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:2.
 5. A method of increasing the production of a heterologous protein in a bacterial host cell, which comprises cultivating the E. coli of claim 1 under conditions that permit expression of the polypeptide factor by the E. coli.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the heterologous protein is a eukaryotic protein. 